Monster GW Gate system added

Two new Tactics are being added that will be live for GW on Sept, 25th 2017.

Tactic 1: Ancient Demon Gates

To make Guild Wars feel more like retail with the Gate system, I’m adding a GW Tactic that functions much in the same way, but with a twist.

Instead of static defenseless gates like retail CO, Eternity will have gate guard monsters that can be summoned with points. (For those who don’t already know, points can be gained by killing the GWPoint monsters roaming around the GW Arena.)

Ancient Demon Attack system details: The gate guards will attack enemy guilds, and leave the guild that summoned it and their allies alone. It has a long ranged magic attack that does low armor ignoring damage. (To be balanced if ever used on a low level server.) It doesn’t move from it’s spawn location in front of the castle entrances so it can’t be lured away and it won’t chase you around.

Gate Monster HP:The Ancient Demon monsters have 65535 HP. (Note: Why so random? That’s the highest number a 16 bit integer can store, CO uses it a lot.) They have really high defense, a maxed out Trojan deals about 500-700 damage per hit. They are still MUCH easier to kill than retail gates were, and aren’t much of a threat without players backing them up.

GW “Castle” Entry Prevention:Much like retail gates, the Ancient Demon Gate monsters prevent enemy guilds from entering through the castle openings while allowing the guild that summoned it right in. It does this by transporting enemies back 20 coords away from the gate if they go from a coordinate “outside” the castle to a coordinate “inside” the castle.Exiting the castle either out the gate or by jumping off the walls is not blocked for anyone. This system should be 100% jump hack proof unlike the retail gates, since the “enemy transport” area covers the entire length of the walls.
Once the Ancient Demon is killed the gate it guards can be freely entered by everyone again.

Cost: It costs 80 points to summon both Ancient Demons, so it shouldn’t be very spamable. *Also, if one dies it costs the full 80 again*

Tactic 2: Wall Defenders

With entry to the GW castle being a bit harder from Demon Gates, I figured it would be cool to be able to put some archers up on the walls to shoot down at foes. Since mob archers don’t really exist in the CO files, they are fireball casting Patrols instead.

Details: Summonable for 30 points, wall defenders only shoot enemies of the guild that summoned them and deal low, armor ignoring damage and have a fast attack speed. They are spaced really close together, so their combined attacks and the speed they attack at make jumping when they are zapping you difficult, which may be more of a benefit than the damage they deal.

HP:Defenders also have 65535 HP, but have much less defense, taking 2 hits to kill with a maxed Trojan.

Summoning details for both tactics:

Currently, both of the above tactics can be used by any Guild, regardless of whether or not they own the pole. This may seem weird since it deviates from the retail system where only the Guild that held the pole could have gates. The only requirement other than having enough points is at least one gate needs to have no Demon gate guarding it, and several Defenders need to be killed before more can be spawned. Also, you can’t spend points to hijack control of existing gate guards or defenders. My thinking behind this choice: Since the system requires quite a few points saved up to use and they are by no means overpowered, I don’t see any reason why this can’t be used offensively as well as defensively. If the guild trying to take the GW Pole wants to use this ability to slow the Guild that holds the pole down while they attack it, that seems like a viable and reasonable tactic to me.

Other unrelated updates:

More Potions and Arrows for All
GW Point monsters now drop high end HP/MP Potions and Speed Arrows to help people out.

I’m going to try to make the distinction between the three different Guild War Point systems a little clearer.Score – A Guild’s Score goes up for holding onto the GW Pole, whichever Guild has the highest score when time runs out wins. Every 5 minutes whoever holds the pole gets a point.

GWPoints – Spendable points that every player gets for participating in GW and holding onto the GW Pole. Redeemable for lots of stuff including Sockets.

Tactic Points (TP) – Points gained by killing the “GWPoint” (ugh bad name), “SuperGWPoint” or “UberGWPoint” monsters in GW Arena. Spend by the end of the round or they disappear. Use at the NPC above the GW Pole to activate helpful things like the GW Gates talked about above, half incoming damage for your guild, etc.

Future Additions:

If the feedback is generally good with the Defenders I may add options to spawn them in other places on the map, such as the bridge, in the castle, or around the pole.

After all, you can already spawn monsters in places all over the map. Defenders are just monsters that don’t attack the guild that summoned them, making them much more viable tactically.